Visual Arts Artistic Illiteracy: Not Just For Americans Anymore! A new survey indicates that the average Briton knows about as much about great works of art as the average American, which is to say, not much. Nearly 10% of the UK identified Monet's famous Water Lilies as having been painted by the Australian Rolf Harris, and fully half of respondants couldn't say who painted the Mona Lisa. Presumably, they all knew who won the latest edition of Big Brother, however. The Guardian (UK) 10/04/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:35 am Looted Art and Technology's Limitations "The recent unveiling of a new Web site listing artworks that may have been looted by the Nazis had at least two unintended consequences, experts say. First, it underscored how much stolen art falls outside the purview of the new venture -- the vast majority. Second, it reminded Holocaust survivors who are trying to reclaim stolen art how far the issue of property restitution has fallen from public consciousness and political discourse." Chicago Tribune 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:22 am Reliving The Good (Bad?) Old Days New York is unquestionably better off as a city than it was a quarter-century ago. But with the urban revitalization of Gotham has come a devotion to to glittering development and expensive cultural monuments that threatens to bury forever the city's rich history of populist art. The graffiti that covered the city's subway trains in the dismal 1970s may have been a symbol of blighted urbanity, but it was also the mark of a populace that had art flowing in its veins. And if there is any good to be found in America's extended economic slump, it may be that New York is beginning to rediscover some of its old city grit. New York Times Magazine 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:38 am Music Thinking Too Small In KC? Kansas City's massive new performing arts center will be many things to many local arts organizations, or at least that's the assumption. Among the individual components of the PAC will be a concert hall for the exclusive use of the Kansas City Symphony. The orchestra is grateful for having been included, but complaints are mounting about the small size of the hall, and some KCS staffers are wondering if the orchestra could ever hope to make money, or grow as an organization, in a hall with only 1,200 seats. Kansas City Star 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 9:04 am Mozart, Muti, and the Movie Man Mozart will be 250 years old in 2006, and plans are underway for a massive celebration at Milan's famed La Scala opera house. Music director Riccardo Muti plans to mount a new production of the Austrian composer's comic classic, Cosi Fan Tutte, with none other than Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar in charge of the staging. "Muti's choice suggests a change of attitude by the maestro, who has been accused of trying to block attempts by the general manager of La Scala, Carlo Fontana, to popularise the repertoire." The Guardian (UK) 10/04/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:50 am Music As A Contact Sport Conductor Keith Lockhart tore his rotator cuff last year, as a direct result of what he does for a living. Laugh if you must, but what orchestral musicians (even conductors) do onstage is a physical nightmare for the human body, and injuries are becoming increasingly common. String players contort their arms and shoulders into impossible positions to reach around their instruments, brass players spend hours with their lips frozen in a pucker, and a conductor leading a Mahler symphony might not drop his hands to his sides for more than a few seconds in a 90-minute performance. Many musicians are adapting new methods of relaxation and muscle relief in an effort to stave off career-threatening injuries. Salt Lake Tribune 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 6:31 am Arts Issues Getting The Arts Into Electoral Politics The arts are not generally on most people's lists of hot political topics guaranteed to spark rousing debate between candidates. "But scratch the surface and you'll find that, when elections roll around, Canada's provincial politicians increasingly do have cultural policies. Partly that's because many of them have started to buy economic arguments in favour of nurturing the arts; partly it's because arts lobby groups have had some success in getting their issues seriously debated, even if they aren't decisive on election day." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/04/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:32 am The Money's There. But Who Knows How To Get It? You could make a fairly convincing argument that, even in times of economic downturn, there is always plenty of money in America that could be used to fund our perennially underfunded theaters, orchestras, and other arts groups. But for many arts groups, the central problem is finding a truly qualified professional who knows how to find that money and convince the people who have it to give it up. In fact the non-profit development director may be the most understaffed position in the American cultural scene at the moment. And that's a dangerous thing, because, like it or not, money makes the arts world go round. Chicago Tribune 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:17 am Making Art, And Maybe Some Money No one teaches marketing in art school. Most students studying line drawing don't get much of an education in fiscal self-management, either. A new web site aims to give artists a head start on making their profession pay, and it all begins with a realistic lesson in Selling Yourself. Baltimore Sun (AP) 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:53 am Holding Tight To High Culture Is Lincoln Center too devoted to high culture? Deborah Solomon thinks so, and argues that, in the wake of the New York Philharmonic's planned departure a few years down the road, Lincoln Center would do well to start embracing a bit of moneymaking pop culture. "What is art? Philosophers have debated the question for centuries, but at Lincoln Center the answer is clear. Art is anything that loses money... The greatest threat to the institution comes not from within, but from without, as it struggles to sustain a 20th-century, Rockefeller-style conception of high culture in the populist, mass-everything 21st century." New York Times Magazine 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:34 am Detroit: The Arts City? Detroit has had its share of bad times. But a new flurry of arts-related development in the city's dismal Woodward Corridor has even cynical observers speculating that we could be seeing the rebirth of one of America's most notorious urban failures. "Expansion of [multiple local arts] organizations will increase the already huge economic impact of the arts, which in 2002 pumped $700 million and 11,755 jobs into the Detroit economy. And that doesn't count the spinoff from those facilities," which looks like it will be considerable. Detroit News 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 6:48 am Boston, City Of Geniuses It's time again for the MacArthur Foundation to begin handing out its so-called "genius grants" - $500,000 gifts with no strings attached, awarded to the "most promising creative thinkers" in America - and this year, the city of Boston is home to no fewer than six of the recipients. "It is not surprising that Boston, with its top-tier universities and hospitals, would attract geniuses. But the Boston winners also represent something else: the triumph of synergy as people cross the traditional boundaries that divide one field from another." The Boston winners include composer Osvaldo Golijov, female circumcision activist Dr. Nawal Nour, and Xiaowei Zhuang, a Harvard physics professor. Boston Globe 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 6:40 am Complete List of MacArthur Winners The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 6:39 am People Sex, Lies, And Hemingway "Eight grandchildren of Ernest Hemingway have settled a feud with the widow of the writer's son over his $7m (£4.2m) estate, according to one of the family. The settlement, which includes a portion of the author's literary rights, follows the death of Gregory Hemingway two years ago. A transsexual, he died of heart disease on the floor of a cell in the women's annex of a Florida jail." The sexual identity of the younger Hemingway, who had changed his name to Gloria, was at the heart of the dispute within the family over whether he had the right to any portion of his father's estate. BBC 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:29 am Titans Of The Keyboard This year marks the centenary of both Vladimir Horowitz and Rudolf Serkin, arguably the two finest concert pianists of the last century. They were contemporaries, but their lives and careers could not have been more divergent, whether in the repertoire they chose or the attitude they brought to the keyboard. Serkin was the conservative, striving for singular perfection in a narrow range of repertoire. Horowitz was the maverick, rarely performing a piece the same way twice, and forever seeking out new challenges and new musical voices. History may not yet be able to determine which man had the greater impact on the world of music, but their joint impact will be felt for years to come. The New York Times 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:03 am Theatre Timeless By Definition "Classics escape the prison of time. Whichever their era, they belong to every other era. People talk of 'contemporary classics' but the phrase is tautologous: classics are contemporary by definition. The bad director of an ancient Greek tragedy batters us with parallels to the present day; the good director lets the echoes reverberate for themselves. The classic doesn't have a sell-by date. If it did, it wouldn't be a classic." Still, that timeless aspect is what makes the classics so difficult to stage, and so confounding to bring to a modern audience. The Guardian (UK) 10/04/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:44 am Calgary, Home Of Cowboys and Theatre Geeks When your city's image is predicated on a lot of cowboy hats and belt holsters, it might be difficult to envision the rising of a successful theatre scene. But that seems to be what's happening in Calgary, where an increasingly diverse local populace is slowly coming around to the idea that a rollicking arts scene might not be a bad thing. "Unlike even a few years ago, it seems as if our young artists believe they can make a go of it here, so they're staying here and doing some very good work." It may seem like a small step, but at a time when so many cities are taking a budget knife to the arts, Calgary seems to be headed in the right direction. Calgary Herald 10/04/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 8:08 am Responding To 9/11. Or Not. More than two years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, the arts world still seems to have no idea how to respond, says Frank Rich. "The commodification of 9/11 by theater artists is perhaps even more dispiriting than that by the vendors who hawk T-shirts at ground zero. You expect more from artists. You don't expect more from the entertainment industry, but given how much hot air its players lavish on politics, its current performance is conspicuously dim." The New York Times 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 6:57 am Media Cutting Off Hollywood's Nose To Spite Its Face Hollywood's attempt to crack down on movie piracy by banning the age-old practice of sending advance copies of Oscar-nominated films to Academy voters is misguided and laughable, writes Peter Howell. "[Fpr Your Consideration] screeners are more than just an ego stroke. They allow critics and awards voters to see many more movies than might otherwise be possible, especially the small gems that get swamped by the blockbusters during the brief window when a large number of films are opening at theatres. The practice contributes to greater awareness on the part of voters, and isn't that a good thing?" Toronto Star 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 9:29 am The Evolution Of The TV Theme TV shows are as identifiable by their theme songs as by their content, and as the TV age has evolved, so has the character of the jingles which call us to the screen. "Older TV themes shun subtlety in favor of eager exposition... [But today,] viewers are greeted with savvier, less overtly cheesy intros, from pitch-perfect indie rock matches ('Crank Yankers' and Fountains of Wayne; 'Malcolm In the Middle' and They Might Be Giants) to savvy instrumentals (the sweeping Irish-tinged cellos of 'Angel'; the sassy cha-cha of 'Sex and the City.')" The New York Times 10/05/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 9:19 am Fighting The American Cultural Juggernaut A new free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia threatens to devastate Australia's cultural and film industries, according to union activists there. At issue is whether Australia will be able to maintain its own cultural identity if a flood of American films, television shows, and other items of mass culture are allowed to hit the open market unrestricted by local content restrictions. The Age (Melbourne) 10/06/03 Posted: 10/05/2003 7:48 am